To All Essential Employees
After growing to dislike Roblox, I've decided to leak an email of theirs that made me upset with the company, and question their devotion to the privacy and safety of the users. Although it's not legal for me to disclose this information to anyone outside of the headquarters, I'm confident that nobody will figure out who I am. From: Administration Date: Wed, Aug 23, 2018 at 9:51 AM Subject: "''To All Essential Employees: Another Reason for Censorship of Experimental Mode games" To: '********''' <*******@corp.roblox.com>, ************* <*************@corp.roblox.com>, and 27 others'' ''As was explained in the last letter, ROBLOX has occasionally been a target of "hit piece" journalism, sometimes false and exaggerated, sometimes true. The articles portray ROBLOX as a dangerous environment for children, making them vulnerable to predators and inappropriate content through online dating, roleplay, and hacking. '' The attention generated by these articles has resulted in a small but significant negative opinion of our company by parents who have heard of ROBLOX. Approximately 21% of parents surveyed had a negative opinion of ROBLOX, and would not let their younger children play without supervision. '' '' It's important to note that this 21% negative opinion roughly corresponded to the 19% decline in mobile ROBUX sales after the December 2017 tabloid publications. (BC sales are no longer considered relevant, see company letter "RE: Expanding Membership Benefits") '' Chat has been progressively censored and even removed for Under-13 players, but this has not shown any significant improvements, and multiple filter bypasses were found by users. It's important to note that most of the true "horror stories" in the tabloid publications (in game "sex", explicit music and images, child abuse images, etc) came not from the chat system, but Non-Filtering-Enabled games (now discouragingly titled "Experimental Mode" games). '' The games were first restricted to 13+ players, then removed from the front page, and after a letter from the FTC questioning our company's COPPA Compliance, the games were forced into Filtering Enabled mode, mostly breaking their functionality. '' The following information is protected by the ROBLOX CORPORATION AND FISA COURT CONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT. It may NOT be relayed to any third party, under penalty of perjury. '' However, the depreciation of Experimental Mode is not entirely due to negative "press" attention or the existence of "unpatchable" or "Level 7" client-altering hacks. It's important to note that Experimental Mode is not simply a "server only" filtered version of client information, but a version of the client and server that complies with the FISA and XKS surveillance programs, specifically targeting the Philippines, but not limited to USA players. '' It's important to note that the vast majority of players need not worry about this aspect of Experimental Mode, and are likely not targeted by it. This aspect specifically targets organized foreign work farms, sometimes called "predator farms". '' Mostly in the Philippines and rural India, there are small (20-50 employee) computer rooms (called "farms"), usually operating illegally and off the public record, using stolen computers, internet connection, and power supply. '' The managers of the company target young adult men (ages 15~25) who are competent in computer and internet usage, and are willing to work long hours for wages lower than are legally allowed. It's important to note that the managers often have connections to Russian foreign nationals in the US. '' These "farms" usually work on projects that are illicit or considered bad business practices, such as "IRS" or "Tech Support" phone scamming, mass production of animation and stolen content used to gain YouTube advertising revenue, or targeted harassment/grooming of children in online social media and games. Two of these were seen in the nearly-mainstream recognized "Elsagate" incident, which was almost entirely propagated by "RIP" (Russia, India, Pakistan) funded farms in the Philippines. '' Starting in June 2011, FISA observed that farms usually dedicated to social media were also occasionally playing online MMO games with children. Among others such as Animal Jam and Club Penguin, ROBLOX apparently became an occasional target. '' Somewhere between 2013 to 2015, small farms dedicated entirely to playing ROBLOX appeared. Although their users would occasionally be banned, online dating was not considered a serious problem and was suspected to only occur harmlessly between teenagers. '' After playing the game "Robloxity" (later shut down by the creator at the request of the staff), as records show, continuously 8 hours a day for 3 days, the user account "VernFonk" - one of the shared accounts of a farm - came into contact with a 13 year old user, whose name is withheld. '' Here is a snippet of the PM conversation - notice the absence of any grammar mistakes common in Russian learners of English, or anything Tagalog-related.'' '' V: So ur really in Seattle? P: yea, u wanna meet up? :P V: I would but my paretns would be mad if i met some guy online V: Like u could be a perv P: it's like only teens on here lmao V: okay where should we meet? P: u choose V: kinnear park? i live right next to there P: ok, I can walk there, my parents arent home V: See you there xo '' FBI agents who had been monitoring the message decided to dispatch an undercover agent to the park to find the predator. After around 10 minutes, a man was found walking quickly towards the girl, only to be tackled by the undercover agent. '' He was identified as 43-year-old Yelena Badukina, a convicted felon with ties to Russia and assisting in a kidnapping. A bottle of chloroform and a handkerchief was found in his coat pocket. An FBI agent spoke to the child, who later went home without alerting her parents. '' The various surveillance systems in place since 2013 are now finalized and perfected with the release of Experimental Mode. Although ROBLOX is not a prime target for farms, and "farmers" have moved on to more vulnerable platforms such as Discord and Amino Apps, we can safely assume that the release of Experimental Mode has put an end to co-ordinated predatory grooming in ROBLOX.